


Pulled Against the Grain

by novaKnight_Rahxbi



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Sickfic, dad!cor time y’all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:20:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22012474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novaKnight_Rahxbi/pseuds/novaKnight_Rahxbi
Summary: Despite his countless achievements, there were still quite a few things that Cor Leonis was not. Namely: not particularly great with children, and not cut out to be a caretaker in any way, shape, or form. Which was very ironic, considering that these flaws made up the situation he was currently knee-deep in._____Cor Leonis gets a healthy dose of reality and tends to the needs of the sick little toddler he rescued from Niflheim.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 65
Collections: 2019 Holiday Exchange





	Pulled Against the Grain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SpitfireRose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpitfireRose/gifts).



> Written for the lovely Rose, whose dad!Cor posts in the discord server fueled my determination to get this done!

At the ripe young age of 25, Cor Leonis was a considerably accomplished young man. He’d joined the Crownsguard at 13, become part of not one but two kings’ retinues, and eventually became the head of the Crownsguard. Top that off with serving as one of Lucis’ top agents for more secretive operations, and he’d be considered the textbook definition of a prodigy.

Despite these countless achievements, there were still quite a few things that Cor was not. Namely: not particularly great with children, and not cut out to be a father in any way, shape, or form. Which was very ironic, considering that these flaws made up the situation he was currently knee-deep in.

“Prompto, stop hugging the garbage can,” Cor deadpanned, looking away from the foods lined up on the grocery store shelf. “It’s gross.”

The aforementioned bouncing baby boy did not heed Cor’s orders, instead continuing to give the nearby trash can all the affection he could muster.

It had been about a year since that fateful mission to Niflheim. Word had spread through the grapevine about illicit operations within a base in Gralea, and Cor had been chosen specifically as the one to investigate. One stakeout and covert invasion of the base later, he had ended up narrowly escaping with evidence of their experimentation, including a substantial piece of evidence in the form of a small infant found in the deeper confines of the building. It was certainly the last thing Cor had expected to bring back with him, but he couldn’t have just left him there. He’d have freed every one of them if he could, but he was just one person. It was all he could do in his power at the time.

As for now, it was all he could do in his power to not laugh as he walked over to lift the toddler up and away from the garbage can and place him back into the shopping cart seat. “I think you’ve stretched your legs enough for now. Time for a break.”

Fussing as he was buckled back into the plastic bench, Prompto resorted to channeling the rest of his energy into swinging his little legs back and forth as they slipped through the cart’s holes. He giggled as he repeatedly tapped Cor in the chest with almost every other kick.

“Hey, hey now, settle down.” Cor reached over into his bag nestled in between the bag of tomatoes and loaves of bread within the cart and pulled out a ring of colorful plastic keys with a small moogle head at the top of it. “Here you go. We’re almost done, okay?”

Seeing and hearing the familiar clacking of one of his favorite toys, Prompto grabbed the key ring and shook them back and forth elatedly.

A small but soft smile grew on Cor’s face as he watched the child play with the toy. Truthfully, it was both a miracle and an eternal question on how he’d made it this far more or less raising Prompto. He had only cared for him for a few days after returning from the base and he was more than ready to give him up to the Crown like Clarus had so strongly advised. The idea of taking care of some random baby he’d found was bad enough, but doing so at his age? That had been practically begging for trouble.

But when those few days he’d promised himself had been up, the desire to responsibly let the kid go disappeared and had been replaced with something else. Maybe it was from when he really looked him in the eyes for the first time. Maybe it was all that giggling from the kid at his expense when he’d hit his head on the doorframe leaving his bathroom. Maybe it had been the oddly satisfying fatigue he’d gotten from chasing the baby around his flat as he crawled (he was damn fast for a baby, to be fair) that led to him getting his name in the first place.

Whatever it was, it had unexpectedly persuaded Cor to hold onto him for a little while longer. At least until a proper family was found that could take over. Vetting processes for adoption did tend to take longer than most people would think, after all. Might as well keep an eye on him until then.

“Alright, what are you thinking for dinner tonight?” Cor held up two separate boxes in front of Prompto, one white, the other blue. “Pasta or Easy Bake?”

Barely even acknowledging the blue box, Prompto smacked the plastic keys against the white box with total and utter confidence.

“You never make it easy for me, do you?” Cor facetiously complained. “Alright. Spaghetti and meatballs it is. But no making a mess this time, you hear?”

Prompto giggled as he hugged the box of spaghetti Cor had placed in the seat next to him.

Cor chuckled at the adorably silly sight. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

* * *

Dinner went off without a hitch, as there was considerably less of Prompto’s sauce-covered pasta noodles that had ended up on the ground from Cor’s attempts to feed him compared to last time. Messy kiddo that he could be, it certainly made eating at the table much less quieter and a lot more entertaining.

After cleaning up the sauce off of the kitchen floor and the corners of Prompto’s mouth, Cor had eventually put the child to sleep in his makeshift bed beside his own. It was several hours later in the early morning that the sound of rapid coughing and crying awoke Cor from his already shortened sleep. 

The young man sat up within his sheets, groaning and rubbing his tired eyes. “Prom, it’s too late for this. What’s the matter?” Cor sat up out of bed and walked over to Prompto’s bed, reaching over to the light switch above it to flip it on. As the light came on with a flash, Cor’s eyes adjusted and widened at the sight he was met with. Prompto was bawling his eyes out, his small hands balled up into fists that he was flailing along with his feet. From the looks of it he’d been coughing for a while, not to mention the small rivulets of mucus running down from his nose.

“Oh no,” Cor pulled back the tossed over blankets and picked Prompto up into his arms. “Shhh, shhh. It’s alright buddy, I’m here,” he murmured, lightly bouncing the child and rubbing his back. “Guess you woke up on the wrong side of the bed today, huh?”

Prompto merely hiccuped in response, his crying having settled down to quiet sobs and whimpers.

Cor glanced over at the digital clock on his bedside table that read ‘5:00 AM’ in glaring red digits and sighed. “So much for going into work today.”

* * *

The inside of Cor’s apartment flat looked like a tornado had blown a drug store through it. Several boxes of assorted medicine tablets lay strewn across the floor, some already open, others carelessly lying on the carpet unopened. Used cold packs and hot packs were precariously piled into a nearby garbage can and were starting to overflow out of it. A couple of them toppled onto the kitchen floor as Cor rushed past, pacing back and forth crunching a cold pack between his hands to activate it.

“Here’s hoping he doesn’t burn through this one in a minute,” Cor mumbled stressfully. Feeling the chill from the pack beginning to intensify, Cor shook it up one last time before walking over to the toddler lying on the couch, head propped up by numerous pillows and blankets. He laid it against Prompto’s forehead, moving tufts of blond hair out of the way to avoid getting them too wet. As soon as the cold pack made contact, Cor held it in place as more coughing from Prompto jerked it around.

The rest of the morning leading into the afternoon had been spent trying to get Prompto’s high fever down. It had been met with crying, coughing, more crying, and even more coughing after that. The works.

“Last one for now, so keep still for a bit,” Cor directed. As he pressed the pack down for a few more seconds, Prompto’s fussing gradually began to die down, the cooling sensation appearing to calm him down.

“There we go. Feels a lot better, doesn’t it?” As Cor moved to adjust the cold pack a bit more, he smelled something starting to burn from the stove area. “Shoot, forgot about the soup. Prom, I need you to hold that there for a second, alright? I’ll be right—“ As he started to move away from the couch, he felt a small cold touch on the top of his own hand that momentarily held him in place. Eyes glancing down, he saw that the sensation was coming from Prompto’s hand placed on top of his own, the child looking up at him with pleading light blue eyes.

“Uh, I’ve gotta go get your food, kid. So I just need you to hold that there…” Cor started, moving the child’s hand back to the cold pack and getting up from the couch. As soon as he did, he heard the beginnings of a small whine turn into more whining from Prompto, his fidgeting increasing by the second.

“I’m just walking over to the stove. I’ll be right back,” Cor said, emphasizing the last two words. Stepping away from the couch and cautiously holding his hands up in defense against any more crying, Cor turned around and walked over to the pot of broth bubbling over in the small pot. Good old-fashioned chicken noodle soup, straight from the can. He’d been sick quite a few times in the past and it’d always done the trick, so there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work now. Moving the pot over to the side, Cor scooped some of the soup into a small bowl, grabbed a tiny spoon and walked back over to the couch where Prompto was waiting.

“See? I’m right here.” Cor sat back down, holding the soup bowl in one hand and stirring it with a spoon in the other. “Brought something tasty for you too, so I hope you’re hungry.” 

Prompto’s face scrunched up in disgust. “Nuh-uh!”

“Don’t be like that,” Cor chided. You need to eat, so open wide.” Cor took a spoonful of soup and blew on it a few times, pushing it towards Prompto’s mouth only to have him turn his head away in rejection.

Figures. Guess it was time to pull out the big guns.

“You’re really gonna make me do this, huh?” Cor refilled the spoon and raised it up high above Prompto’s head. “If you won’t open up for the spoon, then can you open up for the chocobo?”

Prompto quickly turned his head back to face Cor, blinking in surprise upon hearing one of his favorite words. The once mundane piece of silverware turned into the visage of a feathered friend in Prompto’s eyes as Cor swerved the spoon around Prompto’s face. 

“Here comes the chocobo!” Cor exclaimed, forcing excitement into his voice pitched a bit higher than normal. “He’s gotta get back home to his...cave? No, ranch. He needs to get back to the ranch but he can’t do that unless you open up!”

Prompto burbled and giggled until his mouth was wide open with absolute delight.

“Here it comes. It’s gonna go through the tunnel right about...now.” Cor placed the spoon into Prompto’s mouth, slipping it back out with a small _pop!_ once the soup was swallowed.

“Phew,” Cor breathed in relief. That’s all it took? Maybe this wouldn’t be so difficult after all. “Here comes another chocobo…”

* * *

Several attempts and spoonfuls of soup splattered all over the floor later, Cor was left with a successfully fed little Prompto starting to calm down for some much needed rest. After wiping up the last of the mess off the floor and the corners of Prompto’s mouth, Cor hoisted the toddler into his arms and over his shoulder, walking down the small hallway and into their shared bedroom.

“Alright, kid. Gotta put you down for a nap now.” As Cor moved to lower him into the small bed, there was a surprising resistance from Prompto clinging onto him and not letting go. “Seriously? What now?”

“Nooo down! Nooooooo!” Prompto fussed.

Cor sighed in frustration. “I know you don’t want to get down, but you need to sleep. How else are you gonna get better?”

For what was probably the third attempt to put him down into the bed, Cor was instead met with a tightened grip around his neck, tiny feet painlessly kicking into his chest, and a ear-bleedingly loud wail preventing him from doing so.

“Okay, _okay!_ Prompto, enough!” Cor yelled, his voice reverberating slightly throughout the now silent room. The sudden quiet of the room caught Cor off-guard as he looked down to see Prompto staring at him, eyes briefly widened with tears filling them before he started crying again.

“Shit.” The young marshal hugged the toddler closer to his chest, more gently than before. “Shh, alright, it’s alright. I didn’t mean to yell at you, okay? I’m sorry.” He bounced him tentatively in his arms, reassured by the crying settling down into mild sniffles.

“No go, Da,” Prompto whimpered. “Don’ want you t’go.”

Cor froze, the air having been suddenly sucked out of his lungs. Prompto had never called him that before today.

That definitely meant ‘dad’. 

He just called him _dad._

Cor sighed, rubbing his forehead with his free hand to soothe the fatigue and slowly rising anxiety from his newly acquired moniker. He walked over to the corner of his bed and sat down, mattress springs groaning slightly underneath their combined weight. “I’m here. Definitely not going anywhere anytime soon, that’s for sure.” 

He rocked the child in his arms back and forth and started to hum. It began as an impromptu tune, but soon evolved into an old folk song that he’d started to remember from way back when in his youth. As he hummed, he noticed that Prompto’s sniffling had ceased, instead taken over by the soft breaths of the toddler starting to drift off to sleep.

 _This kid, I swear..._ Cor thought to himself, his own eyelids growing heavier from the long-awaited moment of peace and quiet.

* * *

“And you didn’t just call a doctor because?”

“Because I wanted an opinion from an actual parent first, Clarus,” Cor said, gritting his teeth to keep his voice down as he spoke into the phone. He had finally gotten Prompto tucked into bed and took extra precautions to make sure nothing would wake him up, but he definitely needed some backup. “Can you help me or not?”

“What exactly is it that you’ve been dealing with?”

“He was fine yesterday, then out of nowhere he came down with a fever,” Cor answered. “He was coughing up a storm this morning, too.”

“Oh, that’s all? Then you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Clarus said, his tone noticeably lighter than it had been moments ago.

“Ha ha, very funny,” Cor snorted in disbelief. “How many trips to the doctor’s is this gonna take to get rid of? Two? Three?”

“None, Leonis. It’s likely just a case of roseola,” Clarus explained. “Gladiolus had the same thing when he was younger and it went away almost as soon as it came.”

“What about the coughing?”

A low chortle was heard from the other end of the line. “That tends to happen when people get sick, you know. If you let it run its course and don’t panic, everything will be fine.”

Cor rolled his eyes. “Easy for you to say.”

“Welcome to the world of parenting, my friend” Clarus chuckled. “It’s always easier said than done.”

* * *

Like Clarus had so accurately predicted, the fever that Cor had spent all day trying to get down had broken overnight. Instead of waking up to even worse symptoms in the middle of the night, Cor was instead greeted with an energetic Prompto leaning over him and shaking him awake much earlier in the morning than he’d planned on getting up.

“The boy was looking rather lively today, wasn’t he?” Clarus asked, walking alongside Cor down one of the Citadel’s many hallways.

“Hm.”

“That’s certainly more than I can say for you.” Clarus leaned over, looking Cor in his bloodshot blue eyes. “Did you get any rest at all yesterday?”

“Sure did,” Cor droned, rubbing the bits of sleep crust gathered in the corners of his eyes. “All two hours of it.”

Clarus leaned back and laughed, the guffaws echoing loudly throughout the hall. “Not so easy being a father, is it?”

“ _Don’t_ call me that,” Cor demanded, jabbing a finger into Clarus’ chest. “I’m just hanging onto him until the state decides to move their asses and get him a better home. That’s it.”

“Daa! Daaaa!” A voice cried out from around the corner as Prompto eagerly toddled towards the two men standing at the other end of the hall.

Clarus grinned. “Sounds like you should be telling him that, not me.”

Cor rolled his eyes, ignoring Clarus’ sniping as he crouched down to meet Prompto at eye level. “I was wondering where you’d gotten off to. You okay?”

“Up!” Prompto exclaimed, raising his arms and hopping up and down excitedly.

Cor pinched the bridge of his nose in mild irritation before giving in and moving to lift the child up. “Prompto, we talked about this. Sooner or later you’re gonna get too big for this and then you’ll have to…” He trailed off, seeing something on Prompto’s bare raised arms that made his brow furrow in concern. It was both of his arms, Cor noticed, that were covered in pink blotches. They had even appeared on his neck and crept up and across his lower jaw. “What the hell is this?”

“Seems he’s in the rash phase today,” Clarus said, stroking his chin. “Roseola is often a two-day process, didn’t you know?”

Cor sighed, looking over the apparent rash with evident disdain. “No. No, I didn’t know that. Anything else you’d like to fill me in on?”

“Perhaps,” Clarus started, putting a hand on Cor’s shoulder and smiling coyly at him. “But I find that parenting is often better experienced than explained.”

Cor turned to throw a glare in Clarus’ direction, which vanished without a trace upon turning back to see Prompto’s smiling happily at him without a care in the world. He had already experienced a laundry list of insane things in his life so far. Adding ‘off-the-cuff parenting’ to the list probably wouldn’t kill him.

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: i got the idea to use roseola from jse’s interview with troy baker, who talked about his own son contracting it and how he panicked about how to deal with it. he also voices snow from ffxiii, so some irl influence wasn’t too far off the mark!
> 
> thanks for reading!


End file.
